42 o The Natural History of Se I borne 



resort, even in the day-time, to the very tops of the highest 

 trees. Last winter, when the ground was covered with snow, 

 1 discovered all my guinea-fowls, in the middle of the day, 

 sitting on the highest boughs of some very tall elms, chattering 

 and making a great clamour : I ordered them to be driven 

 down lest they should be frozen to death in so elevated a 

 situation, but this was not effected without much difficulty ; 

 they being very unwilling to quit their lofty abode, notwith- 

 standing one of them had its feet so much frozen that we were 

 obliged to kill it. I know not how to account for this, unless 

 it was occasioned by their aversion to the snow on the ground, 

 they being birds that come originally from a hot climate. 



Notwithstanding the awkward splay web-feet (as Mr. White 

 calls them) of the duck genus, some of the foreign species 

 have the power of settling on the boughs of trees apparently 

 with great ease ; an instance of which I have seen in the Earl 

 of Ashburnham's menagerie, where the summer duck, anas 

 sponsa, flew up and settled on the branch of an oak-tree in 

 my presence : but whether any of them roost on trees in the 

 night, we are not informed by any author that I am acquainted 

 with. I suppose not, but that, like the rest of the genus, 

 they sleep on the water, where the birds of this genus are not 

 always perfectly secure, as will appear from the following 

 circumstance which happened in this neighbourhood a few 

 years since, as I was credibly informed. A female fox was 

 found in the morning drowned in the same pond in which were 

 several geese, and it was supposed that in the night the fox 

 swam into the pond to devour the geese, but was attacked by 

 the gander, which being most powerful in his own element, 

 buffeted the fox with its wings about the head till it was 

 drowned. MARKWICK. 



HEN PARTRIDGE. 



A HEN partridge came out of a ditch, and ran along shivering 

 with her wings and crying out as if wounded and unable to 

 gat from us. While the dam acted this distress, the boy who 



